Christmas came early for Washington. They saw Porzingis return to the lineup in Sacramento and escaped with a 125-111 win ahead of Christmas Eve. This was the first game in a while in which the Wizards had their regular starting five.
Porzingis, though, did not have much of an impact other than rebounding on the game. He only recorded 7 points on a very inefficient, 2-11 from the field and 0-3 from deep, but brought in a team-high 13 rebounds. Porzingis also had a tough matchup, having to guard Domantas Sabonis, who is averaging a league-high 12.5 rebounds per game. Sabonis didn’t miss a beat last night, recording 20 points, 10 assists, and 15 rebounds.
De’Aaron Fox also put up a good fight in the Kings’ loss to Washington. Fox scored a team-high 26 points, along with 1 steal, 3 assists, and 7 rebounds. Fox shot over 50% from the field but couldn’t get it going from beyond the arc, a trend you saw from the Kings as a whole, including the man out of Maryland, Kevin Huerter. The Maryland guard, who is shooting a lethal 41% from downtown this season, was held to 2 made 3-pointers on his 5 attempts.
The Wiz, however, weren’t anything special from deep either. Bradley Beal led the team with a 50% shooting percentage from deep. Kispert, who was back on the bench this game, couldn’t find a rhythm, and Kuzma was brought back down to Earth, shooting 2-8 from 3-point range.
Despite a slow game from beyond the arc from Kuz, he led the team to the win with 32 points, 5 assists, and 9 rebounds on 14-23 shooting. The former Laker also had only 1 turnover, a category he has struggled to keep to a low. The Wizards as a team only turned the ball over 10 times while forcing 13 turnovers, and much of this is thanks to Monte Morris’ team-high, 3 steals.
While Kuzma had a huge game, Beal showed his consistency, recording yet another 20+ point night. Brad scored 24 points and dished out 4 assists en route to their win. Beal did also have a tough matchup in guarding Kevin Huerter, but Huerter was forced to only score 14 points and not record a single assist.
The strange difference in this game was how deep Sacramento went into their bench, playing 10 of their 12 bench players, in comparison to Unseld Jr.’s decision of only playing 4 bench players. However, this could have been because Rui proved his importance to the Wizards, scoring 21 points, dishing out 4 assists, and hauling in 5 rebounds in his 27 minutes off the bench.
The Wizards head back to the District for Christmas and then play the 76ers in Capital One Arena on the 27th. Tip-off for that game will be at 7 pm EST.
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